Entries by Steve Patterson

Steve Patterson: Truth and setting the record straight

[su_quote]“Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed.” –William Faulkner[/su_quote] Truth is elusive. Truth is increasingly rare and, therefore, extremely valuable. Truth is scarce and never simple. It is not ours to choose, nor is it dependent on our own capacity to tolerate it. […]

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Steve Patterson: Soul-stirring voices in the Delta

[su_quote]“Then he said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, ‘and behold the Lord passed by and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the Wind ;and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord […]

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Steve Patterson: “Baloney is not cheap!”

[su_quote]If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed. –Adolf Hitler[/su_quote]   Alabama’s Governor George C. Wallace once appeared on a Sunday talk show during his heyday as a demagogic segregationist. There, he proclaimed a profound truth — one that has stood the test of time, and is […]

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Steve Patterson on Senator Fritz Hollings: The last of the Mohicans

[su_quote]“I’m the last of the Mohicans.”      —South Carolina Senator Ernest “Fritz “ Hollings,        Farewell address to the United States Senate [/su_quote]   The roar of the last of the old Southern Democrat lions of the United States Senate has been silenced. My friend and role model, Senator Ernest F. Hollings […]

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Steve Patterson: The day the music died

[su_quote] “I can’t remember if I cried When I read about his widowed bride Something touched me deep inside The day the music died” — “American Pie,” Don McLean [/su_quote]   Mama cried. I fought. Friday November 22, 1963. How the nation’s music went silent An assassin’s bullet kills President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in Dallas, Texas. […]

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Steve Patterson: A Christian Democrat Speaks

  [su_quote] If America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great. –Alexis de Tocqueville, “Democracy in America” [/su_quote]   It came out of nowhere, like a stealth bomber dropping its payload on my unsuspecting self. “Hello, Mr. Patterson how are you?” she said as I stood in a Jackson book store […]

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Steve Patterson: Donald Trump and Lonesome Rhodes-Déjà vu?

[su_quote] “Donald trump is a fraud and a phony ….. Donald trump has had several foreign wives. It turns out there really are jobs Americans won’t do.”     Mitt Romney, Republican Party Presidential nominee 2012 [/su_quote]   [su_quote]“Donald Trump is a pathological liar . He doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies. He lies practically every […]

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“Just another dumb Southerner!” Steve Patterson opinion

[su_quote]“Only southerners have taken horsewhips and pistols to editors about the treatment or maltreatment of their manuscript. This – the actual pistols – was in the old days, of course, we no longer succumb to the impulse. But it is still there, within us.”         William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury[/su_quote] [su_quote]“Yankees […]

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“A Declaration of Conscience” revisited, by Steve Patterson

[su_quote]“The torture of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul” ~ John Calvin[/su_quote] History is a great teacher. We should learn its valuable lessons, but sadly we all too frequently do not. The only reason we are “doomed,” as Santayana said, to repeat history’s mistakes is either because no one was listening […]

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